The U.S. research team will receive up to $3 million of U.S. DoD funding over three years, and the U.K. research team will receive up to £1.5 million from the U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD) core research portfolio over the same time period.

BARI, a pilot program, supports high-risk basic research as a bilateral academic collaboration. BARI’s inaugural year focuses on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and collaborative decision-making. Specifically, BARI sought proposals that build new frameworks for AI agents to more truly team with human counterparts. BARI also aims to support academic teams from the U.S. and U.K. to combine unique skill sets and approaches and provide rapid advances in scientific areas of mutual potential interest to both countries.

Dr. Bindu Nair, the Deputy Director for Basic Research, said that the awarded team has proposed an innovative approach to create novel frameworks for humans and machines to be effective, collaborative teammates. In addition to its scientific potential, this team also represents an important collaborative effort in the long tradition of U.S.-U.K. partnerships.

Dr. Kate Griffin, deputy head Portfolio Commissioning for Defense Science and Technology (DST) in the U.K. MOD concurred and added that the awarded team’s proposal is scientifically ambitious and represents a truly integrated bilateral research team.